Month: September 2016

We all have those shows that we hate and love to complain about which leads the uninitiated to ask: so, why are you watching it?

Hate-watching: when you watch a show that you strongly dislike just so you can criticise it and maybe even because you can’t stop yourself.

Shows that fall into this category for me include: Pretty Little Liars, Shadowhunters, and Gotham to name a few but people hate all sorts of different shows for all kinds of reasons. Looking at the shows that I just mentioned, I clearly have a problem with the Freeform network but there doesn’t even need to be that clear of a link.

The three main reasons behind my hate-watching any show are:

“That Actor”

You were pulled in because somebody that you love was acting in it. The only reason that I watched The Flash (and subsequently, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl) was because it was announced that Grant Gustin would be playing the Scarlet Speedster. Fortunately, I genuinely enjoy all of those shows but you’re not always that lucky.

It’s very easy to follow your favourite actors to absolute train-wrecks but once you’re there you just bear with it until they get some screen time and it all starts sucks a little bit less.

The Good First Season

They sucked you in with a good first season: you became invested in the characters and the outcome of the story and then they went ahead and ruined it. Unfortunately you can’t stop watching because you need to know how it works out. Sure, the plot has turned to crap and maybe some of your favourite characters have left but you tune in every week to find out what’s happening whilst hoping that the show gets cancelled so you can finally be free of this hell.

Just There To Criticise…

You walked into this with your eyes wide open: you knew the show was trash and you chose to watch it just so that you were able to say that it was trash. It is the least noble of all of the reasons but it’s also the most fun.

As somebody who occasionally writes reviews, I can say that it is way more fun to write a scathing review than a good one. A great show leaves me at a loss for words and I just want to shove it in people’s faces and make them watch it. A bad show provides me with so many words: I almost want to write essays detailing everything wrong.

With all of that said, hate-watching doesn’t need a valid origin. The biggest question is whether or not it is healthy. My answer would be yes. It’s like that Doctor Who quote:

“What’s the point in them being happy now if they’re going to be sad later. The answer is, of course, because they’re going to be sad later.”

Well, I’m an over-achiever: I like to get ahead of it and be sad now by watching awful TV but then when I see a good show I appreciate it even more because I know what’s at the bottom of the barrel.

What are you hate-watching at the moment? Why do you hate-watch? Let me know in the comments.

The news cycle at the moment is pretty much all Presidential Debate coverage but if you don’t live in the US or maybe you just don’t need the events of the debate repeated to you over and over again, I have some other news!

Luke Cage Trailer

Netflix just dropped another trailer for Luke Cage yesterday. Honestly, it felt like when Beyonce dropped her album – super casual, but it had me freaking out. The show premieres on Friday morning and I can’t wait. I was excited but this trailer has taken it to a whole new level. The Marvel Netflix series just keep getting better and they seem to have perfected the art of the villain. If you want to be as excited as I am, you can watch the trailer below:

Sherlock Season 4 Episode Titles

The BBC revealed the titles for the season 4 episodes of Sherlock. They are: The Six Thatchers, The Lying Detective, and… well, the last one is still a mystery. That’s most likely because it would act as a spoiler for where this season is heading. Nonetheless, more dedicated fans than myself have taken the two titles we know and all sorts of fan theories are sprouting – peruse those at your own risk.

First Look At Superman In Action

There are a couple of Supermen floating around our screens at the moment but I am talking about the one played by Tyler Hoechlin in Supergirl. A clip from the first episode of the upcoming season was released and it just makes me happy. Supergirl has this very bright, optimistic aesthetic and I’m glad to see that their move from CBS to The CW hasn’t changed that. I wasn’t completely sold on the casting of Tyler Hoechlin but he definitely looks the part in this clip. You can watch that below:

That’s all for today but I’m always here with different content and I’ll be back soon with more news. Until then:

Are you psyched for Luke Cage? What do you make of the Sherlock titles? Is Supergirl to sugary-sweet for you? Let me know in the comments.

We all know that if you’ve watched the trailer you don’t need to watch the movie, right? Most trailers nowadays seem to spill the entire plot and in a lot of cases the trailer is way more interesting than the actual movie (I’m looking at you Green Lantern). So this is a new segment that may or may not continue in coming weeks. First up, Fist Fight.

This is an entire movie about a schoolyard fight. An entire movie. It should be ridiculous (and the jury’s still out on that until the film’s release) but I think that I love it.

Whilst Ice Cube has definitely created a strong foothold in the comedy genre, he’s still very much a scary dude and if this plot is going to work, he has to be. Other than Ice Cube, the cast of this movie is amazing: Charlie Day (Horrible Bosses), Tracy Morgan (30 Rock), Jillian Bell (22 Jump Street) and Kumail Nanjiani (Franklin & Bash) all star as well.

The trouble with comedy trailers is that all of the jokes might be in the trailer (case in point: War Dogs) but this seems like a movie that is going to deliver on the laughs. The writing team don’t have many credits to their name but one of the producers is Max Greenfield a.k.a New Girl‘s Schmidt and who doesn’t find Schmidt hilarious?

As far as trailers go this manages to be interesting whilst not spelling out exactly what happens.

Why are they fighting? Who will win? Why was there a horse in the school? I have a lot of questions but my overall impression was hilarious insanity. I will definitely be watching this when it reaches cinemas next year.

What did you think of the Fist Fight trailer? Are you interested? Why do you think there’s a man tied to a galloping horse? Let me know in the comments.

Season premieres and season finales all happened this week: there was so much good stuff (and also bad stuff but we’ll get to that later) that it is very difficult to choose just one show to crown ‘Best of The Week’ so before we get there, let’s go through the honourable mentions.

Honourable Mentions

Agents of Shield – for a season premiere which that took the show from aliens to Ghostrider – a wise move, but I kind of wish that their Ghostrider didn’t look like a badly constructed cartoon character.

Black-ish – for releasing the most entertaining 21 minute Disney World commercial that I have ever seen.

Modern Family – for still making me laugh in their 8th season.

Empire – for keeping me hooked on what is now essentially a high-budget soap opera.

Mr. Robot – for the most insane and beautifully filmed season finale that left me with more questions than answers.

Show of the Week: Pitch

This week saw the series premiere of the new Fox drama, Pitch, and this had a lot of hype around it so I was definitely wary going into it. When you get as much media attention as this show did, you’re either going to be a disappointment or a phenomenon. So, did it live up to expectations? The answer is a resounding yes.

Pitch tells the story of the first female Major League Baseball player, Ginny Baker, and it has some of the themes that you would expect from this kind of story: sexism, dedication, triumphing against odds. Essentially, it has a lot of heart but it goes deeper than that. This is truly a character story and Kylie Bunbury does a fantastic job of presenting these strong emotions very subtly.

The entire cast was Pitch-perfect and throughout the pilot, seeds were planted to expand on some interesting story-lines. I wouldn’t be surprised if this show won this spot a few more times this season.

If you haven’t seen it yet then you should definitely give it a watch, I’m sure you will cry less than I did.

The Week’s Worst: Gotham

For me, Gotham stopped being good somewhere near the beginning of the second season. Some would argue that it went downhill a lot earlier than that (like, in the early development stages) but that seems unfair.

Whilst I’m being fair, I will say that if I was to grade this week’s episode in comparison to the episodes that were released last season, then this was pretty good.

Sure, every time Jim Gordon speaks I involuntarily cringe at the bad dialogue and maybe the story didn’t make the most sense in terms of character motivation. However, the fact that all of these people choose to live in this city makes me wonder if the logic within the show works differently to the one that I’m familiar with. Yeah, let’s go with that.

What did you watch this week? What did you love and what did you hate? Let me know in the comments.

Happy new week. Did you catch the Emmys? Did you think that Jimmy Kimmel was as excellent as I, a person who did not watch the Emmys, did? This is not going to be all about the Emmys (how many times do you think I’m going to say ‘Emmys’?), I’m sure you got enough of that last week, but if you were interested in finding out who won what, you can check out a full list right here. Back to business: here are some of the other things that have happened this week.

The Nerdy Emmys

The Emmy is the most prestigious television award and with that kind of status, there are certain shows that are never going to be acknowledged by them. They aren’t being snubbed, they simply do not fit within that world but that doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve recognition. I am talking about shows like: Daredevil, Lucifer, The Flash, Supergirl etc. Fortunately the guys over at SourceFedNERD took it upon themselves to host ‘The Nerdy Emmys’. To see who won in categories like best villain and best costume you can watch that video below:

Maggie Smith’s Emmy Acceptance

If you happened to catch Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue for the Emmy ceremony on Sunday you will have noticed that his longest joke was about the fact that Maggie Smith had never attended an Emmy ceremony despite having been nominated and winning several times. She won again this Sunday just past and once again was not there to pick up her award. Kimmel came onto stage and swiped her award saying that he would be placing it in lost and found. Fortunately, she sent this brilliant acceptance note:

Passengers Trailer

If you haven’t heard of Passengers yet, I am sure that you will in the coming months. The film starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt is set to come out this Christmas but it doesn’t quite look like your typical family feel-good. I don’t want to spoil anything (I actually think that the trailer might have spoilt a little bit too much) so I will just leave the brand new trailer below:

If you still want to watch something, the featured video at the moment is a skit from the Emmys between Matt Damon and Jimmy Kimmel. Their feud is one of my purest joys in this world and hopefully you enjoy it. Until the next time I have things to tell you:

Should the Emmys take the superhero genre more seriously? How much do you adore Maggie Smith? Are you excited to see Passengers? Let me know in the comments.

With the new television season kicking off this week I have already explained why I won’t be doing as many reviews but I’m definitely still talking about TV. Just in case you wanted to know if I would be covering your favourite shows I have compiled this list of shows that I will be watching over the next couple of months.

Agents of Shield

Arrow

Atlanta

Black-ish

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Empire

Gotham

How To Get Away With Murder

Jane The Virgin

Legends of Tomorrow

Luke Cage

Modern Family

Mr. Robot

No Tomorrow

Once Upon A Time

Pitch

Scorpion

Supergirl

The Flash

Westworld

As you can see, it’s going to be a busy autumn. Hopefully you’ll be watching along with me.

What shows am I not watching that I should be? Any new shows coming out that you would recommend? Let me know in the comments.

The fall television season begins this week and I can’t wait. There are so many shows that I love that are coming back on which would normally mean that I had a crazy upload schedule because of the tons of reviews that I would be writing. It feels strange not to be in that position but it’s also a relief.

I was writing four television reviews a week last season and that was… an experience. There are a lot of reasons why I’m not going to be doing that anymore and I feel like it’s only right to explain them.

Firstly, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, it’s exhausting. I live in England so in order to get reviews out whilst they were still relevant I would have to get up by 5:30 in the morning and as soon as I had watched the episode and written the review I would have to rush to get ready for university (damn those 8:30 lectures). It meant that I was always in a hurry so I was never fully satisfied with the quality of what I was writing and I didn’t get to enjoy the show – which is the whole reason I was reviewing in the first place.

Over the summer I wrote about the changing direction of this site and how I was going to stop giving myself impossible schedules. I love movies and shows: that’s what this is about, so if I’m writing something, it has to be because I’m enjoying it and I want to write about it, not just because I feel as though I have to.

There are some weeks when I just don’t have any strong opinions on what I’ve watched (that’s a rarity, but it happens) so when I sit down to write about it, I’m essentially making up reactions to try and reach some arbitrary minimum word count.

Another large reason why I won’t be doing episode reviews this season is because it occurred to me that reviewing any show episode by episode is a completely unfair way to judge television. Reviewing single episodes is a bit like watching a random 45 minutes of a movie and judging it solely on that. TV shows are designed to span several weeks or months and the season is the complete package.

With that said, I am entirely open to reviewing seasons (there will almost certainly be a Luke Cage review up next weekend), in fact I much prefer it.

That doesn’t mean that there won’t be plenty of content on here over the next few months. Just because I’m not discussing every single episode of all the shows that I watch doesn’t mean I won’t be talking about television. I don’t think I could manage that if I tried.